Pair sought in shooting death near S.F. State

April Allison and Malcolm Glover, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, August 24, 1995

1995-08-24 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Police were looking for two young male suspects in connection with the shooting death of a Russian immigrant and the wounding of a second during an apparent robbery attempt in The City's quiet Parkmerced District.

Ilya Sogolov, 23, was shot in the head outside a parking garage in the 500 block of Arballo Drive, four blocks from S.F. State, shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Sogolov, a computer programmer who had lived in the United States for less than four years, was found at the bottom of a stairwell leading to the garage underneath a one-story apartment building. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Yagolnitseiz is also a computer programmer and a Russian immigrant and lived in the same nearby apartment building as Sogolov.

Homicide Inspector Napoleon Hendrix said two young men were seen fleeing the area after the shooting. He described them as black, 17 to 20 years old, both about 5-foot-6 with close-cropped hair and wearing dark clothing.

"They look like book ends," Hendrix said, adding that they were last seen running east on Gonzalez Drive from Arbollo.

Sogolov had left his apartment about five minutes before the shooting to pick up his wife at her job at Ghirardelli Square, said his sister, Svetlana Sogolova. When he didn't show up, his wife, Marianna, 25, called friends to take her home.

"He was supposed to pick me up at 12:05, but when he didn't show up, I got worried," she said.

Hendrix said the police were "leaning toward robbery" as a motive for the double shooting, because one of the victims had keys in his hand as if he were about to open the door to the garage where Sogolov's car was parked.

"It appears that the victims were totally surprised by their assailants," Hendrix said.

Carol Bass, who lives next to the garage, said the violence was out of character for the neighborhood.

"I've raised my son out here because it's safe here," Bass said. "It's a real quiet neighborhood. It's unsettling when there's people in some dispute and it turns into violence right on your doorstep." &lt;